How Bad Was The Travel Chaos I Was Scared Of?
Published:
7 months ago, I linked a video on why the travel chaos was so bad. Basically it had to do with a lack of investment that’s catching up to us, but I was scared of how my trip to the US would be affected. Essentially:
- We had to buy expensive last minute tickets to the US because our initial plan had failed. We tried to work around it but besides being peak travel season, Southern Africa has reduced supply given the bankruptcy of Comair.
- On our way to Boise, all the airports were packed, even in Orlando at 5am. Thankfully, Delta gave us free Clear which let us skip the massive security line.
- After dropping my sibling off in Idaho, our flight back was delayed by 5 hours, leaving us with a short transfer window to Orlando. Despite hourly flights from Atlanta to Orlando, all the subsequent flights were overbooked so thankfully we made our flight right on time.
- When flying from Orlando to Miami, we planned on using our Southwest credit to get to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) then try the Brightline to Miami. I didn’t realize the Brightline shuttle from FLL to the train station only dropped passangers off. Thankfully, public transport was there and I paid a 10th of the price for a train straight to MIA to get the hotel shuttle.
- When heading back to Harare, the flight from Miami to Doha was delayed by 8 hours! Suprisingly, it didn’t matter much to us since that was most of our scheduled layoff. Besides, I got to have the best flight I’ve ever had which you’ll hear about once I get around to writing about it.
In all, the chaos was there but it wasn’t that bad (given our time frame) and part of it was self inflicted.
Sadly, flights are still ridiculously expensive so book early. I planned on visiting the US in October around my alma mata’s homecoming and the 1 hour flight from Chicago to Waterloo is $600 round trip!